Jeff Jarvis carries on the Saddam execution video debate here. Jeff is on the optimistic wing of the technology debate. This is some of what he has to say on the subject:
We are in the age of news served raw. And it doesn’t get much rawer than the cell-phone video of Saddam Hussein’s execution that made its way to the Internet only hours after the deed was done.
Even as news organizations deliberated about whether and what to show of the execution, the entire event appeared on YouTube, available for anyone who cared or dared to watch.
Get ready for more of the same. Witnesses to any event can now capture and share what they see not just with acquaintances but with the world, and without the filter and delay of news media. And that doesn’t mean just cell-phone snapshots of bombings or surreptitious footage of closed events. We also have access to the guts of news – original documents, full transcripts, unedited video. So anything anyone sees can be recorded and disseminated. Life is on the record.
Yes, but…contrast Jeff’s optimism with this from photo-journalist Sion Touhig:
Baghdad has a mobile phone network, but mobile phone image gathering is virtually unknown (unless it’s execution footage), as it would be tantamount to a death sentence for most residents.
Life is not on the record in many places, and it’s not just in Baghdad. In Britain, for example, we still run government communications on a system that operates precisely against that ‘on the record’ principle.
Technology is quickly controlled. And even where it isn’t the record is patchy, sporadic, and not always effective.
Over a decade ago, I reported on the effects of exciting new surveillance cameras being introduced outside London’s Kings Cross rail station, a major centre for prostitution and drug dealing. Police could now watch and record every drug deal, and every encounter. So did they record everything and prosecute all offenders? No, they only switched on the equipment rarely, because it generated too much evidence!
Thus is the information revolution thwarted…